Today was one of those days where I should have stayed right in bed. First off, bad night, no real sleep. I got up thinking "oh, I have to go in to work early today" so I did. I foolishly got to work a half hour before I needed to be there. Oh well, 1/2 hour extra on the check won't kill me. Well, one patient after the other was grumpy. It was busy as all heck and it was just one of those days where the end of the work day couldn't get there fast enough.

I made it through the day by thinking, When I get home, I am going to move plants around in my tanks. I had some in the small tank I wanted to move out. Anyway, things were going alright with the aqua scaping when.... CRACK! I stepped down onto my glass top. :shock: :evil: :evil: I could not believe I did it. I had even thought to myself, "It is safe here, I only have one thing left to do and I KNOW it is there so I won't step on it. I should have known I WOULD step on it after today. I can't help thinking of how much more I would have if I wasn't such a dip stick. When I first bought my tank, I was fooling around inside it and used a clamp light so I could see something in there. It melted the top of the aquarium shut! :shock: I am sure you can see a pattern here with me. Makes you wonder why I am single, right? :roll:

Anyway, on to the HELP with Aquascaping part. The plants are coming along and with the additional few from the other tank, It is looking a little better. I would still like opinions for improvement. Since I cut the ugly shark log in half, I was hoping that planting behind it would hide that but nope, it sticks out like a sore thumb. I guess I will just hope as the plants grow it becomes less obvious. So, here is what I have so far.

What would you add? I am going by the theory that there is no such thing as too many plants. ha ha My swords still have like 7 babies on there so as they grow I will have those to stuff in there. Some of my stem plants are getting out of hand in the other tank too so I have those to put in, if needed.

Termato

03-01-2012 03:47 PM

I'm sorry about your bad day Inga. I am totally jealous of your tank. Beautiful! :O! Come in the chat! I wont be there much longer :(

Tazman

03-01-2012 03:58 PM

Sorry about your day as well...mine was busy as well...plus I have a leg injury I am dealing with..

In regards to the tank, I personally dont think you should worry about the log, it looks natural to me. A few tall plants going to near the top would look good in my opinion.

I have to say though, live plants, am not the greatest aquascaper as I havent had a full planted tank for years!

jsagrav

03-01-2012 04:05 PM

Sorry for the bad day as well. How about a bubbling clam shell that opens and closes?
I bet you're laughing now? The tank looks awesome!

Tazman

03-01-2012 04:10 PM

LED bubblers and something like this (replacing bottle for larger version and personal consumption) :-)

Jayy

03-01-2012 04:26 PM

Sorry about your day, when I have a bad day I listen to music. I think your tank looks very nice. I also think both the fake and real log look fine the way they are.

Inga

03-01-2012 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsagrav
(Post 999503)

Sorry for the bad day as well. How about a bubbling clam shell that opens and closes?
I bet you're laughing now? The tank looks awesome!

Mostly I was like this>:shock: Ha Ha

Thanks so much for the laugh.

Quote:

LED bubblers and something like this (replacing bottle for larger version and personal consumption) :smile:

:shock: To that as well Ha Ha

I have seen some tanks though that are totally natural looking until you spy something like that hiding in the plants or something. It is good for a chuckle.

I don't think I would have minded the day so much until I stepped on the glass top and broke the glass. That was so disappointing. :(

Quote:

In regards to the tank, I personally dont think you should worry about the log, it looks natural to me. A few tall plants going to near the top would look good in my opinion.

Thank you. I am hoping that once the swords grow up some more that will help cover up that whole ugly background. My old Swords were up to the top of the water line so hopefully these will grow that much as well. IF all 7 of the little Amazon Sword babies grow enough to be harvested, I am not sure I will have room for all of them. I might have to buy another tank. lol

I might have room for them in the 25 gallon tank but If I put them all in there, there won't be room for fish. lol

Inga

03-01-2012 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayy
(Post 999537)

Sorry about your day, when I have a bad day I listen to music. I think your tank looks very nice. I also think both the fake and real log look fine the way they are.

Thanks. The thing about the fake log now is the back of it. I sawed it off so it has a cut edge. Can't see it from the front but it is ugly from the back side. lol Hopefully as the plants grow up around it, you won't see it so much. Maybe algae will grow on the cut edge and it won't show up at all? I can hope, right?

redchigh

03-01-2012 05:06 PM

are you worried about maintenence? If you don't mind a little trimming every few weeks, I'd add some stem plants to the background to contrast with the broad-leafed plants...

Ludwigea Repens and Prosperpinaca Palustrus come to mind. Both are easy enough to grow, and grow fairly slow.

Angelfish love grass-like plants, so vallisneria would also go well in the back. It can tend to grow rampantly though, so maybe instead, go with Zephyranthes Candida ( Dwarf Onion Plant), Cryptocoryne Retrospiralis, or Crinum Calamistratum.

Now, working only with the plants you have, I would move the highlighted plants in the image further back.http://i39.tinypic.com/xzrfa.jpg
Keep shorter plants in the front, and taller plants in the back.

Does that make sense? It's better to cover up the background a little more, but you want slightly larger gaps in the midground to show the background plants. The ceratopteris can also be moved against the back wall.

Wow, I just reslised I must have been bored... If I did a poor job explaining, feel free to ask a question. :)

Inga

03-01-2012 05:50 PM

Red crack me up. When I first looked at your post (before I started reading) I thought "Wow! she has 2 fish that look exactly like mine do" ha ha

I know what you are saying. I will check into some onion plants, I avoid the grass because it took over my small tank and to me it looks almost like weeds. I don't care for how it comes up mixed into other plants giving it the messy look. The Onion plants I have noticed in the past and thought they looked sort of cool. Is that one that will just keep growing and I cut the end of it as needed?

To go further with what you are saying you think it would look better if I took the Indian Red Echinodorus that is currently on the left (the one you put in red) moved that back next to the sword by the other one like it. Then moved the Small word (the other one you put in red) move it back and snatch up a couple other smaller sword stragglers and grouped them in that area? I think pretty much else is grouped by variety. The Money wort is a little here and there just because It is so spindly.

Oh, the other thing about depths is this tank stinks in that it is only 12 inches wide so... not a lot of front, middle, back. It is pretty much front and back. The ones I have in the front are currently the smaller plants. None of the plants I have in there will stay too small but maybe I can sell some as they get too big and place new babies in there?

Also, Nobody commented on the filter intake. How do you keep the plants from sucking onto it?